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In this rebroadcast, the National Crawford Roundtable tackles the critical issue of biblical illiteracy and theological erosion within churches today. Our hosts discuss startling data that highlights the fading understanding of core Christian doctrine among Americans, even within the clergy. What role does culture play in shaping faith, and why are many churchgoers and leaders shifting away from scriptural truths? This episode offers a sobering yet engaging exploration worth every believer’s consideration.
SPEAKER 01 :
Please enjoy this rebroadcast of an earlier NCR podcast. Welcome to the National Crawford Roundtable podcast, a view of culture, current events, and politics through a biblical lens, brought to you by Preborn, saving babies and souls. Join us in the fight to save babies from abortion. Your gift provides a free ultrasound for a mother in need. 80% of the time she will choose life. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on the Preborn logo to donate to Save Babies Now. And by SunPower LED Light Therapy Devices. Bring light to your pain. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on the SunPower LED logo to get out of pain and improve your overall wellness. And now, here are your hosts, Neil Boron, Bob Duco, and John Rush.
SPEAKER 03 :
Welcome to today’s edition of the National Crawford Roundtable Podcast. My name is Neil Boron, host of Neil Boron Live in Buffalo, New York, and I’m joined by my colleagues, John Rush, host of Rush to Reason. in Denver, Colorado, and Bob Duco, host of The Bob Duco Show in Detroit, Michigan. We get together once a week to talk about things that are going on in the news and to do what we can to provide a conservative and biblical perspective on most of the things we talk about. And today, we’re going to change things up just a little bit. I think if you listen back to like 287 of the last 290 episodes, you’ll hear the name Donald Trump. We’re going to try from this point on to go in a different direction today, just to take a breather, just to look at something else today. And one thing that really caught my attention was a recent, well, it’s been ongoing actually for several years, but some of the recent research that’s come out of the American Christian Worldview Inventory done by the Arizona Christian University Cultural Research Center, which is headed up by Dr. George Barna. He’s obviously a prominent researcher. And we’re going to have an opportunity to look at some of the statistics that are coming out of there because many of them are shocking. And as I mentioned earlier, I alluded to this, we often look at cultural trends in light of what’s going on in politics and in the news. Today, I just want to look at cultural trends in light of what the Bible says we as believers should be concerned about and looking at. And so some of these things are really startling. I’ve got a lot to share with you today, but one that caught my eyes was of the fact that only 4% of Americans have a biblical worldview. 1% of adults under 30 have a biblical worldview. And there’s a possible error rate of like three to 5% or whatever. So even if you’re off by 500%, that would mean only 5% of adults under 30 have a biblical worldview. But let’s say this is anywhere near accurate. What you’re looking at is that the next generation has no understanding of how to think or act or behave in light of God’s word. And that ought to be really troubling. now you can do anything you want with statistics and you know we can talk about the fact that there may be nuances to some of the things that we discuss here today but here’s another one only 16 of so-called christians and they go on to define that we can talk about later but people who call themselves born again christians only 16 believe in the trinity you’ve got variety of scripture passages that refer to that 500 years of church history that says that there’s one God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So what’s happening with regard to biblical worldview? And I kind of want to dig into that today. I know that all of us, John, Bob, and myself, you know, talk about these kind of things on a regular basis. We’ve all seen concerning statistics in the past. But let me just generally ask, and we’ll start with Bob maybe. Are you concerned about this kind of stuff? Because every now and then a new study comes out, and the trends are not looking good as far as what’s going on in the church. And I wondered what your thought was on that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, I’m concerned, but I’m not surprised because we got to remember we live in a post-truth world right now that’s driven by feelings. And let’s face it, truth trumps feelings. By the way, I just said that to get the word Trump in there. I’m just kidding. But – No, but it really is so much for our Trump-free zone. But no, the thing is, that is where we seem to be as a culture today, that everybody just wants their own feelings affirmed. And so what do they do? They form their opinions about anything involving theology, God, whatever, based on what feels right to me. And what feels right to them is as long as you’re a good person, then, you know, heaven is a reward for people who basically finish their life with positive karma. They did more good things than bad things, and hell is a punishment for people who are more bad than good. It’s really an Eastern religion, karmic way of perverting Christianity. But no, this doesn’t surprise me, Neil, at all. And actually, we should expect this because Jesus himself talked about how there’s going to be a great falling away before he comes back. He said, when the Son of Man returns, will he even find faith? And so we’re supposed to be being, in essence, sifted to a remnant. So it doesn’t surprise me. Yes, it can be disheartening, but it also reminds me that we’re getting that much closer to to Jesus’ return. And it also reminds me how important it is that we stand on the truth of God’s Word and some of the basics, okay? God is a triune God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, okay? Jesus Christ is Lord. He’s the only way to be saved, the only means of salvation. The Bible is the authoritative Word of God. I mean, these kind of basic tenets of faith that used to be the non-disputables. The disputables used to be eschatology and such, but now the non-disputables are becoming disputables. And real quick, Neil, I had somebody call into my show one time and say, Bob, here you are pounding that we’re saved only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and these basics. And you gotta realize, Bob, this is a Christian audience, isn’t it? You’re preaching to the choir. And I said to him, you know something? When you look at the polls these days, half the choir needs preaching too. And so, yeah, this is a disease spreading through the church. We’re taking on the flavor of the culture and world around us, which is, I’m going to believe, what feels right to me.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Yeah. And really interesting points you raise, and we’ll come back to some of those. But John, first, what’s your reaction to all this? You grew up in and around the church. You and I both are survivors of legalism. So, you know, we’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. But your thoughts on this?
SPEAKER 02 :
I think it goes back to a lot of what Bob said. So Bob is spot on. So I don’t know that I could say that part of it any better. Although guys, even when we talk about where we are with in regards to, you know, civics and basic understanding of things and so on. And you look at the lack of just overall education period in young people. Is it any surprise that now transfers over to what, what is happening in the church? I mean, I’m like, Bob, am I, Am I saddened by this? Absolutely. Am I surprised by this? No. I mean, we have got people, to Bob’s point, you know, on the feelings end of things, we’ve got people who think two plus two is five because it feels better than four. I mean, we’ve got an entire now. Well, men can get pregnant.
SPEAKER 04 :
Men can get pregnant.
SPEAKER 02 :
Men can get pregnant, yeah. We’ve got entire generations, plural now, of individuals that are exactly what Bob is talking about. And everybody wants to blame, you know, the next generation. Guys, this isn’t one generation. This is multiple. Yeah, no question.
SPEAKER 03 :
You guys, well, we’re going to come back to some of what we’re talking about here. First, I want to say thank you that we even get to discuss these kind of things on a regular basis. Thank you to our sponsors who make that possible, including Preborn. They have been a longtime partner of the National Crawford Roundtable. We thank them for that. But we thank them even more for their commitment to helping save the lives of innocent babies and to protect the moms in the process. Bob, Preborn is a huge contributor to what we’re doing here at National Comfort Roundtable.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, they are. And of course, our listeners are too, because it’s our listeners that partner with Preborn and basically fund and pay for the ultrasound images that save these babies’ lives. This is what Preborn does. They are set up in pro-life centers all across the country. There’s ultrasound machines there. They show pregnant moms an ultrasound image of their baby. And statistically, those moms choose life almost all the time. So it’s very important that we show these ultrasound images of the babies to the moms. Problem is, we don’t have enough ultrasound machines out there And we don’t have enough money to pay for as many ultrasound images as should be shown. So that’s why we ask you folks in the audience, give to Preborn. Pay for ultrasounds. It’s really that simple. You’re saving babies’ lives. You can do this two ways. Either A, buy an ultrasound machine outright. They’re $15,000 a piece. Nice tax write-off for you. And you get to know… that you’re saving thousands and thousands of babies’ lives. This is remarkable. And if you can’t do that, pay for an individual number of ultrasound images. $28 is the average ultrasound expense to stop one abortion, to save one baby’s life. So pray about how many babies’ lives you can stop. take $28 times fill in the blank. And whatever that number is, that’s your forever legacy of the amount of abortions that you’re stopping. Maybe you gave to Preborn last year. Would you give this year for 2025? We need you folks to give right now. And remember, 100% of what you give, every penny goes to ultrasounds, not a penny for overhead. That’s all covered by private donations. So here’s how you give. Go online to CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on Preborn. CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on Preborn. You can also give over the phone. They answer the phones 24-7. So call 833-850-BABY, 833-850-BABY. Just mention National Crawford Roundtable when you call. And thank you for supporting Preborn. Thank you for supporting SunPowerLED, which, Neal, is just phenomenal. This photobiomodulation is just incredible what it does to get people out of pain naturally.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I’m not surprised by the growing interest. I actually had a conversation about photobiomodulation, which is essentially just light therapy. The other day on my program, and the phone lines were lit up because people wanted to know about what’s available online. from SunPower LED that can help them with pain and swelling in their body. They need healing for various things. And they don’t want to turn to Big Pharma anymore. There’s a tremendous amount of distrust related to Big Pharma. They’re not, anybody I think is not willing to just jump in and have surgery for something when you don’t, maybe don’t need it. And I’m telling you that SunPower LED has been instrumental in changing the game plan on all of this because It provides high-intensity LED light from the red and near-infrared spectrum that goes deep into the cells of the body, energizes them, gets them to do what the cells were created to do, and that’s to heal our body, to reduce pain, reduce swelling, so that we can get back to doing what we were created to do in the first place. So if you’re interested in learning about that and you’ve got joint pain, back pain, headaches, tinnitus, all kind of things that I’ll probably mention even again a little bit later on. Then go to SunPowerLED. Click on that link when you go to CrawfordMediaGroup.net. CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on SunPowerLED and get details about how the very light God himself created can be used to promote healing in your body. It’s an incredible thing. And so thanks to both of our sponsors. Another stat that jumped off the page at me was the number of Christian pastors that say they have a biblical worldview um 37 of christian pastors have a biblical worldview i found that astounding i had no idea where that even came from when they narrowed that question to evangelical pastors it was 51 so they put a little bit of a squeeze on that saying you know what’s your doctrinal position in the first place got to 51 but some of the mainline churches and um you know, Roman Catholic churches, et cetera, had a much lower number, shockingly so, because I think most people sitting in the congregation are thinking to themselves, hey, you know, well, maybe we need a tune-up here. Maybe we need to understand a little bit more about the Word of God and teach that to our kids. But certainly, you know, the pastor’s on board. with having a quote biblical worldview which essentially means that the bible’s a priority in your life that you believe what it says and that if we’re going to understand god’s heart uh his plan and purpose for us as human beings as members of his family and working to build his kingdom that our first go-to has to be what the word of god says about anything that we face in life and parenting and education and fidelity and you know all the handling money and all these things So that’s what it means to have a biblical worldview. There was another stat that I saw. I think the Christian Post put an article out recently. Well, actually, it was October of 21, but it was titled, Nearly 70% of born-again Christians say other religions can also lead to heaven. which means only three in 10 so-called Christians believe that Jesus is the way. When in fact, Jesus said, I am the way, I’m the truth, and I’m the life. No man comes into the Father except through me. Well, that’s kind of troubling. And I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier, but I did have Dr. Barna on recently. I probably said it earlier, but he was on the program. And I said, so what do you make of these stats? Like, what is this saying to us? And he said, the bottom line is we’re no longer making disciples. We’re not making disciples, which led me to this. And I’d love to get your opinion on it. The first thing that popped in my mind was a kid, you know, a young person standing in front of a garage door with a bucket of paint and a paintbrush and their dad, or maybe a boss. Some authority figure is standing there saying, look, I’ll be back a little bit later on, but what I want you to do right now is paint this door. Just paint this garage door, and I’ll be back in a little while. Well, isn’t that exactly what Jesus did just before he ascended to heaven when he said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Now he’s essentially handing the keys of the kingdom to those who are coming after him, saying— So therefore, I have this authority, and I’m entrusting it to you. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I’ve commanded you. And you can trust that I’m going to be with you to the very end of the age. I’m with you in this, but this is your job. Go and make disciples. and barna you know his conclusion and maybe there are other conclusions to be had in all this but that we’re no longer making disciples and i don’t know that that should fall only on senior pastors or on church leadership or on the church in general but it should also fall on parents and christian educators and really all of us um but i was troubled i don’t know john i heard you over there so i’ll start with you but This is our job. This is the one thing we were told to do is to make disciples.
SPEAKER 02 :
Correct. And I know there’s times I sound on this program like I’m very critical of what happens inside of the church, and there’s times that I am. And these are some of the reasons, Neal and Bob, as to why. I mean, you look at part of this study I was looking at as to people, you know, Christians are – I’m not saying it right – Americans believe in a higher power, but not necessarily the God of the Bible. That’s another side of this study that came out as well. Again, a lot of this, I still say, comes back down to just sheer education. Guys, I’m no church growth expert or anybody along those lines, but you’ve got to wonder, are we at times in the church worried about, sorry to say it this way, butts in the seat and the offering plate? Or are we worried about making disciples for Christ when it’s all said and done? In other words, are the programs in the church designed to make disciples or are they just designed to grow?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s a good question. Bob, you have a different background than John and I. We kind of grew up around the church. grew up around the expectations that were put on us as young men trying to learn what it meant to be a Christian. But you were actually involved in a cult, I believe, prior to getting involved in evangelical Christianity. So I don’t know if you see this differently or what your take is on it.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I don’t see it differently. I mean, yeah, when I was a little kid, my mom was part of Worldwide Church of God, Herbert W. Armstrong, Armstrongism, so very legalistic kind of thing. And I broke away from that at a young age when my parents got divorced when I was like 10, 11. I pretty much broke away from that and was somewhat of a… agnostic, skeptic, whatever, until I accepted the Lord at 19. But Neil, the thing that you’re talking about, these statistics, I mean, I’ve interviewed George Barna many times over the years as well, and back when he was running the Barna Group. And the fact is that these numbers are getting worse and worse, and I’m not surprised by them. Just in October of 2022, 2022 or 2023, I can’t remember which one, But Pew Research, which is a very large worldwide religious issues polling company organization, they asked senior pastors, senior pastors, can you earn your way to heaven outside of Jesus Christ by being a good enough person? 35% of senior pastors said yes to that. So, Neil, we’re losing our saltiness, okay? When we talk about saltiness in the church, saltiness not only is a flavoring, but it’s also 2,000 years ago was a preservative, as you know. What we’re doing is, number one, the church is not flavoring culture around us. We’re being flavored by the culture around us. Number two, we’re not preserving the Word of God. We’re not preserving the gospel. We’re allowing the gospel to basically be a wet piece of clay molded into the the shape and formation of our culture around us. And so this is where I think, Neal, we have to recognize if we’re gonna be true, committed followers of Jesus Christ, that means that the contrast between us and the world around us has to get stronger and stronger and stronger. But we’re bending over backwards, I hate to say it, including the church, we’re bending over backwards to try to remove the offense of the gospel so that we can be palatable to the world around us. And I’m not saying we don’t try to get along. Of course we should try to get along. But we’re watering down the gospel to the point to where it becomes a culture-friendly, Sodom and Gomorrah-friendly kind of, hey, you know, I have Jesus with me, but there’s really no—there’s nothing about me or my life or what I say that would be an offense to Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, guess what? That’s not the gospel. It’s a different Jesus. Just as Paul warned in Galatians 1 and 2 Corinthians 11, if somebody preaches a different gospel, a different Jesus, let them be eternally condemned. These men are false apostles, deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ, okay? So Christianity is not being eliminated. It’s being redefined and reshaped into something culture-friendly, and I would argue it’s a counterfeit Christianity.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I don’t disagree in any way with what you’re saying. I want to add another aspect to it, though, because I was thinking a lot about this. And I wondered myself, you know, how much other factors play in this process. I don’t think it’s any one thing. I think what you’re saying is absolutely true. But add in the fact, you know, Buffalo, New York here was a huge area. Catholic diocese here was massive. And then, you know, the whole scandal related to priests abusing children. I mean, it hit hard in this area, and there’s been a huge decline. Catholic Church is selling off property, condensing dioceses, whatever that word is, you know, five churches being combined into one in order to pay off the debts. Now, there have been scandals in Protestant churches as well. Let’s not pretend there haven’t been. Some of them on a massive scale. and so you’ve got you know sex scandals you’ve got money mishandling that kind of stuff spiritual abuse you know i just think sometimes people are looking at pastors driving you know jet airplanes and whatever and they’re saying jesus didn’t have anywhere to lay his head like is this even real um so you got spiritual abuse and and maybe the modeling doesn’t look good like more lessons are caught rather than taught right at least that’s what they say so maybe parents playing a role by not really living first and foremost for the kingdom like is it on us as parents um i think there’s other factors and i as we kind of focus here in the first half and got just a few minutes left before we conclude this part of our conversation i want to look more at the why like why do you think this is happening then what are we going to do about it maybe more in the second half but You know, we love to point the finger at Hollywood like it’s their fault or critical race theory in the schools. That’s what it is. It’s the liberal Department of Education. That’s why we need to shut it down. So that’s the problem. Maybe it’s just all of these things.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t know. John, your thoughts on that? Yeah, no, I think it is a combination of all of those things. As you were saying some of that, I got to thinking, Neal, you know, over the years you’ve watched different things happen inside of churches to where, you know, this person’s point of view, because we don’t want to hurt their feelings, we’ll go ahead and let them, you know, do this or serve in this capacity or they can be on this committee. And, you know, before you know it, you’ve got a bunch of liberals, which I hate to say this, but liberals have literally infiltrated the church down through the years. And then we wonder today why we are where we are. I mean, to me, this is pretty self-explanatory and we’ve allowed that For, I think, a couple of reasons. A, like I said earlier, the money, the butts in the seats, all of that, that’s all part of what happens inside a church, church growth, and so on. And then on top of that, it’s the whole, we don’t want to offend anybody. We don’t want to send anybody out the door that might disagree with us. So then we just allow this stuff to go on and not saying that we shouldn’t allow these people in. The problem in the church, in my opinion, we’ve let too many of these type of people in leadership.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. almost like a lowest common denominator thing. When you’re searching for somebody to be on a fundraising committee for the church or whatever, and you kind of dismiss their own relationship with Christ or what they believe about things like we’re describing here today. And so you put them on the committee, all of a sudden they’re in a leadership position. They may not even believe any of this is true. So the other thing I want to mention before I throw it over to Bob is Two things, really. The not my problem syndrome, which means like, well, you know, if there’s a problem like with evangelism, that’s the pastor’s job to fix that. Or, you know, there’s an evangelism committee here at the church. It’s not my job to be an evangelist. So it’s like shifting blame to other people would be one of them. But also I mentioned, you know, parenting. My parents announced just before I went to school for my junior year, I was headed off to training camp for football. And they said, by the way, when you come back next summer, who do you want to live with? We’re getting divorced. These are the same people that didn’t let me square dance in fourth grade. And I love my parents, but I was like, what? You’re getting divorced? Like the D word? And for a period of time, that was my crisis of faith moment. I didn’t want anything to do with Christianity. They had a huge impact. I came back soon enough. It wasn’t long, you know, out on the beaten path there trying to do my own thing, but it had a huge impact. Bob? I don’t know. I’m going to take whatever time we have here to get your thoughts on this, and then we’re going to hear about our sponsors one more time.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Well, you know, I mean, the point you’re making is a very good point. And, you know, for me, and it’s just my opinion here, okay, but for me, there is an underlying concern. a foundational cancer that seems to be running through the church right now, and it’s coming from society as well, and that’s a certain form of idolatry. Now, when we look in Scripture, we see the kind of idols, the false gods that people worshiped throughout Scripture, whether it’s the golden calf or Molech or Baal or Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, Acts 17, Mars Hill statues and such. Today, Guys, I really believe the number one idol that’s being worshiped today is the image in the mirror, that we are so narcissistic. It’s all about me. My life belongs to me. It’s me, my life, my happiness. What’s God’s purpose? God’s purpose is to make me happy. Why am I created? So that God can make me happy. And Everything revolves around us and me. So my doctrine, my feelings, it’s my, my, my. And to me, this is a huge problem because it kind of serves as a common thread that runs through all of these issues. If we would be willing to take a less of me, more of him, it’s not about me. It’s about God. My life doesn’t belong to me. I offer it as a living sacrifice unto him no matter what. then I think we would have a stronger biblical worldview in the church, but we don’t. Society says it’s all about me. Social media has poured lighter fluid on that, and that has bled its way into the church and influenced the church. Instead of us influencing society, we’re being influenced by the church with this idolatry of self. We’re a narcissistic church. And I would argue that’s going to affect just about everything that we do. And by the way, Neil, I would say certainly, you know, you mentioned our sponsors. I would say absolutely one of the areas that we see this is even the issue of abortion. I mean, why is somebody getting an abortion? Because, hey, it disrupts my life, my expectations, what I want from my life. And we need to change this. Yes, legally, I’d love to make abortion illegal, but in the meantime, let’s change women’s hearts. And you know a great way to do that? Let them see an image of their baby, an ultrasound image of their baby, because it’s very rare for a woman to see a picture of her baby in her womb and then still go across the street to Planned Parenthood. Well, Preborn is the main pro-life group that shows these ultrasound images in pro-life centers all across the country. The problem is, folks, we don’t have enough ultrasound images being paid for. And that’s why we’re asking you folks in the audience right now, would you partner with Preborn? Would you give some amount of money to Preborn to pay for ultrasound images? $28 is the average ultrasound expense to stop one abortion, to save one baby’s life. So pray about a number of babies’ lives that you’d be willing to stop. Take $28 times fill in the blank. Whatever that number is, that’s your forever legacy of the amount of babies’ lives that you saved. Maybe you’ve given to pre-born already. Would you do it again? And hey, we need some of you out there to buy ultrasound machines. They’re $15,000 a piece. Nice tax write-off for you. But your forever legacy is you’re stopping thousands and thousands of abortions year after year. So what do you say? Either way, 100% of what you give goes to fund ultrasounds, not a penny for overhead that’s covered by private donors. So here’s how you give. Go online to CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on Preborn. CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on Preborn. Or give over the phone. They answer the phones 24-7. So call 833-850-BABY. 833-850-BABY. Just mention National Crawford Roundtable when you call. Thank you for supporting our sponsors like Preborn, like SunPower LED, Neil.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I heard a story the other day about a woman in her 90s who was unable to see for two years. Started using the light therapy on her eyes and was able to see her daughter for the first time in two years after 10 days of treatment. That was it, 10 days. Also, another woman who got rid of her readers. Now, I have no idea how light therapy is effective in helping to treat problems with your eyes, and I don’t suggest that you get rid of your ophthalmologist or anything else. My point is, look into what light therapy, photobiomodulation can do for you, and you can learn all about it by checking out SunPowerLED when you click on CrawfordMediaGroup.net. CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on SunPowerLED. And we’ll be back with more in just a moment. We’re talking about changes in the church and the need for discipleship. More to come on the National Crawford Roundtable podcast.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is a Crawford Media Group production.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks again for being with us, part two here of this week’s National Crawford Roundtable podcast. My name is Neil Boron, host of Neil Boron Live on WDCX in Buffalo, New York. The other end of Lake Erie is Bob Duco on WMUZ in Detroit, Michigan, and John Rush of Rush to Reason, suffering for Jesus out there in the Rockies. I mean, it’s tough, but he’s the host of Rush to Reason on KLZ in Denver. And I’ve really enjoyed the time over the last few minutes here, but also for the last several years, getting a chance to talk about things that are important, that are life-changing, that I believe God cares about, and that we as believers need to look at. And today’s conversation is kind of centered around the idea of biblical worldview and the decline in biblical worldview. There’s a couple of guys that wrote a book. One, at least, Jim Davis, I believe, is a part of the Gospel Coalition. Don’t know much about the co-author, Michael Graham. But they wrote a book called The Great Dechurching and pointed out in there that what we’re experiencing right now is the largest and fastest religious shift in U.S. history. More people have left the church in whatever the last 40 million people have left the church in just the last whatever it is, years, you know. that they’ve been counting these kind of statistics. Then during the First and Second Great Awakening, and all of the revivals, including Billy Sunday, D.L. Moody, and Billy Graham, in other words, all the people that came to churches during those revivals, it now exceeds the number that ever came in the first place. 40 million people have left the church, and they talk about it in a book called The Great Dechurching. Now, one of the things they point out in there is this quote, and I’ll read it to you. It says, in just a generation, which I would assume to be 20 years, The children of the unchurched will be de-churched, changing the nature of spirituality in America. Well, I think that’s already underway, personally, but it’s kind of at the heart, at the basis of what we’re talking about today. And in the first half of our conversation, we were kind of looking at the question of what’s the problem? Why is this happening? What do we see? And I kind of want to turn the tables a little bit. I mean, we can still talk about some of that if other things come up, but I wanted to ask more what… What do you guys feel like we need to be looking at to see change in this area, to see something turn around? Because I don’t think wishful thinking, honestly, is going to get it done. Action matters. And I think it’s important that we, you know, be clear about what we think the Lord might be saying in these areas as opposed to, you know, just saying, well, that’s pretty interesting stuff. Let’s move along. me ask kind of an open-ended question here for a second uh do you guys think that evangelical christians however we want to define that but i think we basically know what an evangelical christian is i think the media the legacy media misuses that term but for those who know and love the lord believe that jesus is the only way to heaven the bible is god’s word it’s true and it’s you know it’s the authority for life and godliness etc uh that Are evangelical Christians doing a good job of representing Jesus? Which I could actually say, am I doing a good job of representing Jesus? And I’ll talk about that in a minute. But John, do you think that evangelicals are representing Jesus well in this day and age? And why or why not? Okay, how come?
SPEAKER 02 :
No, and again, I think a lot of this comes down to the first half. We talked about training and education and how do you share your faith and what do you do? And by the way, Nealon, you know my background. I would never… ever suggest going back to that legalistic approach of things that you and i grew up in so that’s not at all what i’m talking about but training people on you know how do you do things how do you behave in society how do you behave in all of these different things that are going on in life and then you know i just want to throw this in really quick because i do think some of what happened inside the church and i think some of these numbers have seen a significant drop since COVID because, frankly, churches weren’t bold enough during COVID. Again, I go back to that whole leadership aspect of what I talked about in the first half where you get certain individuals with certain beliefs that end up inside of the church and have leadership positions. COVID comes along, and far too many shut down. They should have stayed open. They should have fought government. They should have said, you know what, guys, pound sand. We’re going to stay open no matter what. Far too many caved. And frankly, I think a lot of even good, solid evangelical Christians looked at that and said, that’s not my church. I don’t want to do that anymore. And I think at times, and I talk about this on my program a lot, when people establish new patterns, new habits, those old habits are gone and they may not come back. And I think that’s part of what’s happening in the church right now. In other words, I don’t think that all these people that aren’t going to church are somehow dire sinners on their way to hell. I think what’s happened is the church let them down. Yeah, I think you’re right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Bob, you know, how do you respond to what John’s saying? I’ll throw in a few of my own thoughts in just a minute.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I want to add a particular branch to this tree of discussion. And maybe I’m biased here because my primary role is a Christian apologist. And that’s what I do here in my show in Detroit, apologetics more than anything else. And so, so much of our culture and society today Because I talked about earlier, we’re in a post-truth world. People don’t really care what’s true. They care about having their own feelings reaffirmed. And so unfortunately, there’s a lot of Christians that are saying, you know, apologetics is really a dead issue. The way that we need to reach people now is to basically, you know, form relationships with them and let them see the love of Christ. And by the way, I’m not denying any of that. But what happens is that becomes the end game in and of itself. It’s as though I’ve accomplished something if I have caused my neighbor to not be quite so offended by Christianity because I’m a Christian that has formed a relationship with them and is showing them love, and that’s great. But the question is, is that really actually going to bring them to Christ, or is it maybe going to get them to the Unitarian Church across the street or the rainbow flag-waving church that’s culture-friendly and such? So there’s got to be a point when we say, look, this is true and this is not. And when Jesus sent his disciples out, he told them, yes, share the good news, of course, but he also said, if they don’t receive you, He said, shake the dust off your sandals and move on. He didn’t say, if they don’t receive you, become a chameleon. I’m not saying we don’t, you know, the Apostle Paul became under the law, so he became a Jew to the Jews, so I get that. But to a certain extent, there’s a point where we have to say, look, there are some unchanging truths, and this cannot be compromised. And if we have to shake the dust off our sandals and move on, let’s move on. But when it comes to apologetics… Even the new style of apologetics is all relationship-building apologetics. And I’m not saying there’s no place for weaving that in, but even that we’re conforming to the narcissistic approach. idolatry of self that we’re presenting the gospel to people in a way of, but here’s what’s in it for you. Your life will be so much happier. Your life will be so much more fulfilled. Here’s how Jesus made my life so much happier, and he can make you happy too. And again, I’m not saying there’s never a place to talk like that, But it seems like that becomes the driving, selling message of how we reach people with apologetics today. And there’s got to come a point where we say, you know something, it just isn’t about you and me. We were created to worship him, not to be served by him. And so I guess we have to be willing to shake the dust off our sandals and move on sometimes instead of even turning the witnessing efforts all into a… what’s in it for me kind of feel. And I do believe that we’re doing that more and more. We’re taking what Paul said, I became all things to all men. We’re taking what he said and we’re putting it on steroids to fuel the narcissistic, what’s in it for me feel. And that’s why I think we just need to caution ourselves in that area. That’s all.
SPEAKER 03 :
This is the kind of conversation I wish we could have sitting in a circle and just looking each other in the eye because there’s so much to say here. And I want to add even another branch, Bob, that was powerful what you just said. I’ve got some other things I want to say in response to that. But first, I want to say thanks to one of our sponsors. SunPower LED, and these are the makers of what’s called light therapy. The fancy word is photobiomodulation. Devices, units that can be used, they harness the power of light, literally taking certain wavelengths of near red or near infrared light, supercharging them and to the point where they can literally penetrate the body. And they go into the body, they get to the cells, they energize the mitochondria, wake up the cell to do what it was created to do, and that’s to heal our body. Now, I mentioned a 90-some-odd-year-old woman who was using this on her eyes, was able to see after being blind for two years. She saw her daughter for the first time in two years. There’s another gentleman, I mentioned him last week, I think, Jose. You can actually see him if you watch the video. When you go to the website, CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on SunPowerLED, but you can see a video of Jose who was blind. He had a detached retina and diabetic retinopathy. But after two days of treatment, he was totally blind, two days of treatment, cloudiness in his eyes decreased. And there’s a video of him driving a motorcycle around because he can see and he knows where he’s going. And it’s the coolest thing. to see what light therapy has been able to do in so many different ways. And I’ll have more to say next time we talk about it. But see for yourself. Go to CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on SunPowerLED. Bob, I don’t want to lose my train of thought, but you need to tell us about Preborn because we can’t have these kind of conversations apart from the help of our sponsors.
SPEAKER 04 :
We really can’t. And so a lot of you have given to pre-born already. We very much appreciate that. Maybe you gave to them last year. Would you consider giving again this year? What we’re doing is we’re paying for ultrasound images so that in pro-life centers, moms can see that picture, choose life, not go to Planned Parenthood, let their baby live. Pre-born shows these ultrasound images, but it does cost money. So that’s why we’re asking everybody right now, pray about a number of ultrasound damages you’d be willing to pay for. $28, $28 is the average ultrasound expense to stop one abortion, to save one baby’s life. So how many babies’ lives will you save? Take $28 times fill in the blank. Whatever that number is, maybe God lays a number on your heart. And you know what? That’s your forever legacy of the amount of abortions you stopped. And listen, if you can buy an ultrasound machine, we need you to do that too. They’re 15 grand apiece. Maybe it’s a nice tax write-off for you, of course, and your forever legacy is you’re stopping thousands of abortions year after year. So either way, whether you’re buying an ultrasound machine or whether you’re paying for an individual number of them, 100% of what you give goes to ultrasounds, not a penny for overhead. That’s all covered by private donors. That’s how it works with Preborn. So here’s how you give. Go online to CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on Preborn. CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on Preborn. You can give right there. Or you can talk to a real-life person over the phone and give that way. Call 833-850-BABY. That’s 833-850-BABY. And just mention National Crawford Roundtable when you call. And And we appreciate you folks doing that. And yeah, Neil, I mean, the point that I was making before, and I’d certainly love to get your take and your thoughts and reaction, and John’s on this too, but it does seem as though even our method of witnessing today has become so self-centered and so self-focused. We’re taking the Apostle Paul’s, I became all things to all men, and we’re putting that on steroids to where we’re feeding and fueling the narcissistic view of it’s all about me. So what’s the gospel? Well, the gospel is what’s in it for you in your life and how you can have a happier life and such. We’re pretty much turning the gospel into something that supplements your life. And I’m not saying there’s not a place for… for using that kind of carrot. But to me, that’s milk, not meat. And there’s gotta come a point when we have to bring people to maturity to realize that you have to embrace what’s true, not what makes you feel good. And you have to recognize we are created to worship God. It’s about Him. It’s not about us. Salvation is not something we can earn by being a good enough person. It’s a free gift that God gives us. It’s about Him, not us. We gotta get that turned around. And I don’t see us trying to turn that around. I see us trying to reinforce the, hey, here’s what’s in it for you message.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, no doubt. And so much of what you’re saying, I think, can be addressed in this quote from George Barna. I’ll have something else to say about it in a second. But I mentioned interviewing him recently and you know his thing was hey we’re not making disciples that’s let’s just face it we’re really not making disciples um and who is it is a disciple just somebody who comes to jesus so that they can get blessed you know get a double portion of goodies you know from jesus or is it somebody who’s willing to lay their life down all right so barna said uh and he talks about the importance of us first being disciples so we can make disciples but he says after all disciples are not born they’re coached into the life of christ by other disciples we clearly see this in the example given by jesus my studies have consistently confirmed that people almost always become disciples because of a disciple or a series of followers led them on a deeper journey toward christ That relationship between discipler and disciple in process is crucial to the outcome. Motivating children to desire the status of disciple of Jesus is perhaps the best is best accomplished by sharing a compelling vision of the Christian life. That’s a vision built upon identifying with Christ, living like him, voluntarily sacrificing everything to be his follower. looking forward to spending eternity with him i don’t hear the goodies in that last sentence you know what i’m saying it’s like no he’s calling us to lay our lives down and we need to be the ones who are willing to demonstrate that first and foremost if we’re going to make disciples we’ve got to be a disciple which leads me to two things i really wanted to say and i’ll try to be quick quick but i would call them i’ll just use the words teachability and accountability um I think that we live in a society, Bob, you’re right. We’re very self-focused, self-centric, everything. We’ve got blogs and podcasts and selfies. Sometimes you click on somebody’s Facebook page and you look at their photos and there’s 150 photos and 148 of them are selfies of that individual. Or maybe in the tiny corner in the back, you can see the Grand Canyon. It’s like, hey, look, everybody went to the Grand Canyon. But 98% of the picture is their own face.
SPEAKER 04 :
Over their left ear. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, exactly right. Okay. So, I mean, that’s a good example of what I’m talking about. We’re very self-focused. You’re 100% right on that. But we’re not self-reflective, you know, and I’m thinking we’re not willing to be anyway. And I’m thinking of the verse in the Psalms. I think it’s in Psalm 139. But, you know, search me, O God, know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Are we really willing to go before the Father and say, Lord, I’m opening myself up to you so that I can see what changes need to happen in my own life? A quick example of where I think we tried to address this when I served as a pastor was that we flipped Sunday school and church around. And instead of doing Sunday school that was completely unrelated to whatever the sermon was going to be about, we did the church service first and then had conversation groups afterwards. Now, some people left, went home to watch the Buffalo Bills or whatever. But others stayed to be a part of the conversation. And we called it DNA, which stood for discussion and application. And so we asked three questions. The first one was, what was the sermon about? Secondarily, how do you think it applies to the church? And everybody had a lot of ideas about the church worldwide, how Christians need to respond to the sermon we heard today. Third question was, how does it apply to you? And that’s where the crickets came in. That’s when it was really much harder for people to enter in. Why? Because we don’t want to be examined. We think we’re OK. Everything’s fine. But I really think that we need to have an attitude that says all of this starts with me. I have to first be a disciple of Jesus. I have to be teachable. There was an event I went to recently. It was a men’s event in Oakville, Ontario. I attended it. It’s called Free Indeed. great men’s event. It was like 1200 people in that room, but there was seven or eight sites all tied together. It was like four or 5,000 men were a part of this. But I went because I realized I need this kind of thing in my life. And I’m not saying this to be super spiritual. I’m just admitting publicly right here that if you are involved in Christian ministry and doing, you know, stuff for God all the time, I’m involved in events. I talk about Jesus every day on the air. kind of easy to click a box and go well i’m acting like a christian today click the box but am i really being transformed by the holy spirit and i knew that i needed it and so i i think part of the you know the willingness to be a true disciple means following after jesus but first and foremost making sure that whatever change needs to happen as i lead others in these things is first and foremost happening in me so that whole idea of modeling I think is powerful and important. And I just wanted to say that as an extra branch on the tree, because yeah, we are very self-centered, but not to the point of self-examination. And I think that’s a separate branch that needs to be considered from time to time. I got a few minutes left here, and I was wondering, instead of just dissing on the church, what kind of things do you guys think are happening that are worth noting, like good things that we see happening in the church, changes that have occurred maybe in the last few decades that indicate that there’s some good things going on in Christianity right now? I don’t know. Anybody want to go first on this? John, do you got anything for us?
SPEAKER 02 :
I think if there’s any positives to the church, it is that it is easier to attend than ever. Now, if we could get some of the things internally fixed that we’ve been talking about for the past hour or so, then I think we’d have a lot better chance of doing the things you just got done. Mentioning one last thing I want to add into what you said, Neil, as well, that I just keep thinking about and all the things that you said, and this is across the board with, again, several generations. No one knows what sacrifice means, and being a Christian involves a lot of sacrifice.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Bob, your thoughts?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think really I’m going to end up being Johnny One Note here because it comes back down to the idolatry of self-issue for me. So what I think is good that’s happening inside the church are you do have some pastors, there are a dwindling number of them, but you do have some pastors that are still standing like an oak tree in a tornado and saying, I am not going to compromise. I’m not going to alter my message. But we need to recognize that this is what’s happening all around us. And actually, Neil, one of the things I wanted to say about this, too, you know, on my show here in Detroit, I may have mentioned this on a previous podcast, but on my show here in Detroit, I do a lot of debates. And I’ve been doing this show for 25 years now. I got to tell you, 20 years ago, 95% of the debates that I was doing, Neal, 95% of them were with self-described atheists, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, those people, evolutionary scientists, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Islamic groups, LGBT groups, such. Okay, today, Neal, 95% of all the debates that I do on my show are with pastors, Bible scholars, theologians, Christian authors. And you know something? I’m not saying anything different. You go back and listen to an archive of my show from 20 years ago, I’m Johnny One Note. I’m saying the same thing over and over again. But there are some pastors out there and there are some Christians who are refusing to take on the flavor of the world around us and still standing on the truth of God’s word, even if they get mocked and accused of following grandpa’s old school religion. Well, you know what? I’d rather be guilty of that than to becoming the lukewarm. that gets spit out of Jesus’ mouth. So there are Christians and pastors and leaders who are still standing and they’re taking the slings and the arrows and they’re being lightning rods to not compromise the word of God. And you know what? We need to thank them. We need to encourage them. We need to lift up their arms as well. And we need to stand with them. And so I applaud those pastors and those Christian leaders and those Christian authors out there that are willing to give up popularity points for the sake of sticking to the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And one thing, I don’t know if you agree or disagree, John, you probably tune in on this one real quick. We don’t have a lot of time, but I’m grateful that the church has changed in certain ways. Like back in the day, you know, you had to wear a suit coat on a Sunday to church, right? I mean, it was a very external kind of thing. And we know that God, man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. And so I’m glad that I can wear blue jeans and a t-shirt to church if that’s what I feel like wearing, as long as my heart’s in the right place. And that’s where I got to check with the Holy Spirit, Lord, am I obeying you? But in other words, we really focused on the minors. Look at that guy over there. He was smoking a cigarette outside the door of the church before he came in, and that becomes our attention rather than worshiping Jesus once the sermon begins and once the service begins. I don’t know. I’m grateful that we’ve gotten past a lot of the legalism, but I’m also concerned, as Bob was saying earlier, that – that we may be moving in some ways towards a watered-down Christianity. Keeping the faith by staying true to the true message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is imperative. That’s what Bob was describing, the idea that maybe the methods have changed a little bit. I’m okay with that part as long as we’re not getting away from what really matters.
SPEAKER 02 :
All comes down to balance, Neil. All comes down to balance.
SPEAKER 03 :
I asked Chuck Swindoll after 25 years of ministry. He’s probably at 50 plus now, but I had him on my program one day around the 25-year mark. And I said, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned in 25 years of ministry? You know what he said? Balance. Very cool. You just reminded me of Chuck Swindoll. Thank God for our sponsors. SunPower LED happens to be one of them. They’re our newest sponsor here on the National Crawford Roundtable. And you’re like, well, what is that? Well, it’s… It’s a system by which you can use the very light God created to help heal your body. Now, a lot of people are concerned about pharmaceuticals these days and unnecessary medical interventions. And if you’ve got somebody who wants to rush you towards surgery, I’d say be really skeptical, especially when it comes to things like back surgery. I’ve heard horror stories about people getting back surgery that didn’t work. well if you’ve got back neck joint pain problems healing it may even be struggling with things like dizziness headaches migraines tinnitus etc you need to learn what light therapy can do for you because it takes certain wavelengths of the very light god created Red and near-infrared wavelengths of light shoots them into your body, pain-free, no chance of getting cancer. This isn’t UV rays or anything, but it excites the mitochondria in the cell, and that cell wakes up and starts doing what the cell was created to do, and that’s to heal our body. So, I mean, there are people that are experiencing unbelievable changes in their body, things, you know, getting away from the pain and discomfort of cervical spinal stenosis and i mentioned earlier um you know somebody dealing with retinopathy detached retina and diabetic retinopathy it’s unreal how many different things are being affected positively by light therapy so check that out go to crawfordmediagroup.net and click on sun power led you can watch some videos you can learn in fact they have a free webinar every tuesday Go to CrawfordMediaGroup.net. Click on SunPowerLED. Bob, another major sponsor. So grateful for the work of Preborn.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, absolutely. Saving babies’ lives. But you know, they can’t do it alone. It takes money to pay for these ultrasound images to show moms. They choose life when they see a picture of their baby. So we’ve got to show as many ultrasound images as we can. I would love to say that every pro-life center in America is equipped with an ultrasound machine and that they can show as many ultrasound images as moms want to see. But that’s just not the case, all right? We need more ultrasound machines. We need more ultrasound images paid for. And this will save more babies’ lives. $28 is the average ultrasound expense to save one baby’s life, to stop one abortion. So we’re asking you in the audience, pray about a number of babies’ lives you’ll save. Take $28 times fill in the blank. And that number becomes your forever legacy of the amount of babies’ lives that you saved. So would you do that right now? And hey, if you can afford to buy an ultrasound machine, we need some of you heavy hitters to do that. Nice tax write-off for you. They’re 15 grand apiece, okay? And you get to know you’re stopping thousands of abortions year after year. But for everybody else, $28 times fill in the blank. How many babies’ lives will you be willing to save? So go to CrawfordMediaGroup.net, click on pre-born. You can give right there. Or call them at 833-850-BABY, and you can give right over the phone. The answer 24-7. And remember, all overhead’s covered by private donors. So 100% of what you give goes right to the ultrasounds. So 833-850-BABY. We appreciate you folks doing that. Neil?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mentioned teachability and accountability before. And I think maybe one more thing I wanted to say in light of all that we’re talking about here today is the willingness for each one of us to also continue being a disciple. The idea that we haven’t arrived and we may not know everything right now, but we can know more things. We can grow in our relationship with Christ. And we need to be willing to do that. And so that idea of teachability matters. Bob, you mentioned changes in the guests you’ve had on your show doing debates and so forth. I’ve noticed from callers over the years how few today are willing to pick up the phone and call and talk to an expert in some particular area so they can learn what that expert has to teach them. Sometimes people will call these days. I mean, it still happens, but not quite at the rate it was 25 years ago. But people will call today and say to the expert, Yeah, well, that’s interesting that you talk about that. I know you’ve been doing that for 50 years, and you’ve written 60 bestselling books. But let me tell you what I talk about on my podcast. It’s like, what? Wait a minute. Maybe we have something to learn from one another, and I just pray that that’s evident in all of us as believers. Very grateful. I’ve had a chance to learn so much from you guys about things I didn’t know, and I’m grateful for our opportunity to get together here on the roundtable each week to John Rush is the host of Rush to Reason on KLZ in Denver. Bob Duco, host of the Bob Duco Show on WMUZ in Detroit. And my name is Neil Boron, host of Neil Boron Live, heard daily on WDCX Radio in Buffalo. Thanks for joining us for this week’s edition of the National Crawford Roundtable Podcast. And God willing, we’ll see you again next week right here.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’ve been listening to the National Crawford Roundtable Podcast, a view of today’s culture through a biblical lens, brought to you by Preborn, saving babies and souls. Join us in the fight to save babies from abortion. Your gift provides a free ultrasound for a mother in need. 80% of the time she will choose life. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on their logo to donate. And by SunPower LED light therapy devices. Bring light to your pain. Visit CrawfordMediaGroup.net and click on the SunPower LED logo to get out of pain and improve your overall wellness. You can download this podcast from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and more from your local Crawford Media Group stations website or at CrawfordMediaGroup.net. And please give this podcast a five-star rating on your Apple app. Look for the notification on your app for when the next weekly edition of the National Crawford Roundtable podcast is ready for you to download. This is a Crawford Media Group production.
